Walls that Guard the Heart: Astrology of 2/20 – 2/26

Venus recently formed a conjunction to Saturn and this week she joins up with Pluto. Venus is spending a little bit of time with our ongoing Saturn-Pluto conjunction, so have this triple conjunction of Venus, Saturn and Pluto on the South Node of the Moon, all in Capricorn. Mercury in Pisces will also aspect Jupiter and Pluto this week, helping us access visionary thinking. (As well as delusional thinking… but this is an opportunity for our inner-guide to tune within and stay with the messages as we sift for clarity.)

The Venus-Saturn-Pluto conjunction is dark, and heavy, and beautiful. One of its biggest opportunities is for us to tune our relational skillsets and relational integrity to meeting the walls within ourselves that we are transforming – the places we have marked off as bad or wrong or not lovable. This extends to walls we create in relating to others.

We often put aspects of ourselves into shadow when we do not have the ego or consciousness structures yet to relate to these aspects of ourselves. As time goes on and we collect experiences and wisdom, we gain opportunities to unpack whatever we’ve previously compartmentalized.

As we learn to relate, love, and forgive parts of ourselves we have turned away from, we might notice our judgements of others soften as well – our judgements of others reflect judgements we have of ourselves, after all.

We might even say that this Venus-Saturn-Pluto alignment is a transformation of the structures of the heart, as well as a transformation of any walls that are around the heart. This energetic is not often breezy or lighthearted, rather it is robust, dark, character-building, sobering and impactful.

An opportunity of this week is to gain further lucidity around the boundaries and walls we create around ourselves so that they are not just unconscious structures that bind us, that fade into the background and create loneliness and disconnection. These structures can be supportive, but it would help to know where we stand, what we wish to let in, and what we wish to keep out. Are these structures adaptive – do they need transformation? What would change actually look like?

Have you had any deep breakthroughs around relationship and love lately? Share it in the comments so we can spread the knowledge.

Forgive the morbid art choices this week (below) – it was just too archetypally connected to Venus-Pluto for me to pass it up. I can’t tell you how many morbid art choices I filter out week to week because of my own Venus-Pluto proclivities 😂

Here’s our week:

February 22, 2019

Mercury in 21 Pisces square Jupiter in 21 Sagittarius: 12:40 PM PST

It’s easy for our fantasy life and mental fantasies to be inflated at this time. But rather than imposing strict binaries like truth versus fantasy or visionary thinking versus wishful thinking, perhaps we should let these fantasy images work on us a little bit. Similar to how we might sit with our dreams and reflect upon them, our waking thoughts can also invite this kind of reflection, as our waking thoughts might be taking on more of a dreamlike quality.

When there are unknowns or open-ended situations, we are sometimes inclined to want to tie things up and collapse the vast unknown into an identifiable particular – to arrive at some ‘answer’. But Pisces and Sagittarius are both mutable signs, and mutable signs work to shake up and dissolve patterns that have been previously stabilized. The mutable signs represent the transition between the four seasons, not the height of a season itself. When we have unusual, dreamy thoughts or confront the unknown, there is a way that these new stimuli loosen up patterns we’ve collected, and this loosening up prepares us for the next season of our journeys.

Though it may be difficult discern whether our thinking is ‘real’ or not, we can be likely to experience visions at this time. A vision can mean seeing the meaning in a situation where before we were just inside of it or with the details. A vision can be prophetic thinking. Or a vision can be seeing the hidden opportunity somewhere, or a veil obscuring our clarity lifting.

Venus in 22 Capricorn conjunct Pluto in 22 Capricorn: 7:53 PM PST

(Image: Absolution in Death by Danny Malboeuf)

Venus joins up with Pluto – this is in a sense, an annihilation. Pluto is the great death and rebirth planet, the planet relating to the soul and the underworld. As Venus and Pluto come into contact, they fuse like on force: which opens up many possibilities:

We can find what is normally taboo or dangerous to us becoming suddenly more alluring or inviting (though this has been working on us for a little bit, as Venus approached Pluto).

We can be deeply craving intimacy, and may be having transformations within our various relationships.

I’ve heard a LOT of people talking about making a choice to become more honest in relationships, saying the things they normally don’t in order to be nice or to not rock the boat. I associate it with Venus in Capricorn and this conjunction – the movement toward integrity in relationships by being honest about what it is we value, which allows other people to connect to who we really are or make the informed choice to move on. Otherwise, we are trying to keep love by projecting false images of ourselves, which imprisons and controls us and is, in actuality, manipulative. Many of us do this out of fear of rejection or abandonment, but around this time I’ve sensed a lot of people shedding layers of this construct and deepening their honesty with others and feeling rewarded for it.

The union of Venus and Pluto signifies a transformation of our values, which is both within ourselves and in our relationships to others. With Venus and Pluto both in the signs of Capricorn, we can be transforming our relationship to shame as well as the unconscious boundaries we erect to protect ourselves from rejection or disappointment but which actually keep the love that we desire far away. Pay special attention to the corners of yourself that you don’t think are lovable – that is an intimacy issue within the self, and with this transit it’s likely to come up into conscious attention. How could you relate to these parts of yourself if you were your own best lover? What support is available to you in your environment and relationships?

We can change and develop ourselves, but take care that it’s coming from a place of love. There are some aspects of self that we would do better to just accept and love – like core characteristics that aren’t going to change even if they take on slightly different costumes. The discovery of how to integrate these aspects of ourselves is a process of self-love – as we figure out how to relate to what before we wanted to hide from or cast away, we bring ourselves into a deeper wholeness.

February 23, 2019

Mercury in 22 Pisces sextile Pluto in 22 Capricorn: 9:18 AM PST

(Image: Michael Whelan)

So there’s some underworld activity – Saturn and Pluto conjunction in the background, and the Venus-Pluto conjunction this week. Saturn-Pluto alignments can correlate with a tendency to harshly judge the shadow or to harshly judge in an unconscious way. It can relate to moments where the inner-critic is nearly debilitating. But Pisces is about compassion and forgiveness. Try to track this week if you are entering harsh spaces or shame spirals and remember to bring yourself back to compassion and to bring that compassion TO whatever it is that is triggering you. These things just come up sometimes, and this is an opportunity this week for healing and integration. Mercury in Pisces can work this week to mediate and dissolve shame constructs.

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! I really appreciate you being here with me as I know that if you connect to this writing we have likemindedness and that is so special. Please share this article with a friend who you think would resonate!

Please let me know what you think in the comments – truly I want to know so leave a note! I love you and you are tribe to me, thank you for finding your way to these words and resonating with them in whatever ways you have. If you feel you would benefit from further guidance on your personal natal chart and transits, I am available to help! Book a reading with me here.

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3 thoughts on “Walls that Guard the Heart: Astrology of 2/20 – 2/26”

Yes!! Releasing self-judgement, practicing radical self-love and thereby releasing my judgements of others. Dropping into radical self-acceptance and will to release the walls I’ve erected to protect myself from people and the world. 🙂

Venus/pluto at 22* Capricorn is exactly conjunct my IC this weekend, and I finally feel ready to let go of an intense, passionate, obsessive love affair. It began when venus was conjunct our pluto/juno conjunction, and it has taken me deeply into new realms of sexuality, feeling and various levels of self-understanding. We were supposed to have a retreat this weekend, but with our pattern of unhealthy vibes reigning supreme, I finally feel ready to let go, focus on loving myself and manifest love that nourishes me without so much pain.